Unless the study identifies how many of those homicides were committed by those exercising their shall issue freedom the data is NOT relevant
This. All day long.
Unless the study identifies how many of those homicides were committed by those exercising their shall issue freedom the data is NOT relevant
Most of the "conclusion" are showing that gun control measures are useless .
The problematic one runs into issues with using Homicides as a raw number with no further differentiation . When 98% of the public discusses " Homicides " , they are really thinking of Murder and Non- Neglect Manslaughter ( UCR language ) .
Justified or Excusable Homicide is people being shot , who needed shooting . Not what the public is thinking of , and is actually a positive thing, and not part of the problem .
Breaking down by the actual doer . Just because a state is shall issue , doesn't mean that the people doing murders are permit holders . If the doers are themselves Prohibited from owning or carrying , or the killings weren't in public , then those are statistically irrelevant to the policy question .
Dig further into those states purported to show increases . Dig deep into the unabridged UCR . Eliminate from both sides of the question Justifiable Homicides , homicides by those with criminal records ( ie Prohibited ) , and those occuring in the homes of the killers . You will get substantially different percentages and trends .
We excluded homicides due to legal intervention (1% of firearm deaths), unintentional firearm fatalities (2.5% of firearm deaths), and fatalities of undetermined intent (1% of firearm deaths) from our analysis.
We obtained homicide and suicide mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS), which are derived from the vital statistics death registry of the National Center for Health Statistics.
It should be noted that these are three of the four least populated states:However, the CDC does not report death rates when the absolute number of deaths in a state during a given year is less than 10. For this reason, we did not have a complete panel of homicide data for three states: North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.
I would hesitate to say the study was biased and may simply be how the number calculated out.
Our country is not uniform and there can be orders of magnitude differences between the states. While 1991 was around the peak homicide year for many of the high homicide states, it was not a peak year for many of the low homicide states. Many of the high homicide states have seen significant reductions in the homicide rate since 1991, while the low homicide states may have seen small increases in the homicide rates. The low homicide states tend to be some of the least populated so small changes in homicides changes the rate more than the more populated states.
NY and CA have some of the largest drops in homicide rate and are some of the most restrictive states so the restrictions appear to have the biggest benefits. The low homicide states also tend to favor the least amount of restrictions and allow CCW, yet have seen small increases in the homicide rates. This is likely why they found increases in homicide rates in CCW states. It should be noted that the vast majority of low homicide states are still below average and most of the high homicide states are still above average.
And this is why you don't use a "public safety is the aggregate of individual safety" argument when attempting to secure a fundamental Constitutional right.
Because studies like this one will blow your argument out of the water. The opposition will point out, rightly, that if public safety is the aggregate of individual safety, then it follows that when the public safety has been increased following the imposition of the laws under consideration, it follows that average individual safety must likewise have increased. What will your argument be then in the face of that?
To argue the public safety angle is to tacitly acknowledge the fundamental presumption that public safety overrides the Constitution, when it is the Constitution, and not public safety, that is the supreme law of the land.
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose
Correlation does not imply causation.
We found a relationship between the enactment of two types of state firearm laws and reductions in homicide over time. However, further research is necessary to determine whether these associations are causal ones.
SCOTUS has said
Unless you think you can get them to accept that prisoners in jail should have access to arms because the right is unlimited, I don't see any problem acknowledging that there are limits to the right. Public safety happens to have some historical precedent in defining limits to the right.
And if they do manage to establish that causal relationship? What then?The problem with the study is that they only established a correlation. As stated prevously,
This is acknowledged in the study itself
Until they can establish that there is, in fact, a substantial causal relationship, I don't see that there is a reasonable relationship between the laws and reductions in homicide.
Why shouldn't we? Because of why the other side has won using this type of argument. They win not just because of the type of argument, but because of what's behind it. The courts have accepted their public safety showings as sufficiently compelling. Why should we believe the courts would accept an opposite showing?I am not sure why you think this study blows my argument out of the water. This study aggregates individual instances of harms to understand possible public safety implications. The other side has won most cases using this type of argument. Why shouldn't we use this same type of winning argument?
Your argument above is irrelevant to my point. I'm not arguing that the right is unlimited. I'm arguing that the Constitution, and thus any right it secures, is not subservient to public safety. Again, it is the Constitution, not public safety, that is the supreme law of the land.
If they do manage to establish an actual causal relationship then the right should be curtailed for that particular example.And if they do manage to establish that causal relationship? What then?
That's my point: if they successfully show that their law improved public safety, then your public safety basis for securing the right is blown clean out of the water. And you'll have nothing left to fall back upon, because at that point you'll have already tacitly acknowledged that it is public safety, and not the Constitution, that determines whether or not the right survives.
The courts have accepted their public safety showings because of quirks in the law and poor arguments on our side.Why shouldn't we? Because of why the other side has won using this type of argument. They win not just because of the type of argument, but because of what's behind it. The courts have accepted their public safety showings as sufficiently compelling. Why should we believe the courts would accept an opposite showing?
You are arguing that it is unlimited at least with respect to public safety.
And to insist that I'm arguing that the right to arms is "unlimited" is a strawman. I'm arguing no such thing.I am trying to get you to understand that SCOTUS has indicated that essentially no right protected by the Constitution is considered unlimited.
No, public safety is a common reason that rights have inherent limits, and more specifically were understood by the founding generation to have inherent limits. That is not the same as arguing for their infringement on the basis of public safety.I am also trying to get you to understand that public safety is a common reason to curtail rights.
No, those are cases where the right itself was already understood, by the founding generation, to not encompass those things. That is a very different thing.In first amendment cases, fighting words and incitement to riot are examples of public safety interests curtailing free speech rights. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions for other examples.
Really? And if "curtailing" the right means evisceration of it? Then what? Does "public safety" override the Constitution or not? And if it does, or even can, what is the Constitutional foundation for that assertion? What is the Constitutional foundation for even the conditional override of the Constitution by public safety?If they do manage to establish an actual causal relationship then the right should be curtailed for that particular example.
The opposition will argue that criminals were law abiding citizens until they suddenly weren't, and thus law abiding citizens cannot be exempt.They are not going to establish an actual causal relationship for most things because law abiding citizens don't commit crimes. It a definition thing. Those that do are not law abiding citizens and should face the consequences.
Maybe. But my point is that there's absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that our public safety showing is going to be more compelling than the opposition. Your argument is that the protection of the right itself hinges upon that outcome, and my point here is that your argument presumes that the outcome is permissible whether or not it overrides a direct Constitutional command.The courts have accepted their public safety showings because of quirks in the law and poor arguments on our side.
McDonald v. City of Chicago said:The right to keep and bear arms, however, is not the only constitutional right that has controversial public safety implications. All of the constitutional provisions that impose restrictions on law enforcement and on the prosecution of crimes fall into the same category. See, e.g., Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 165 L.Ed.2d 56 (2006) ("The exclusionary rule generates `substantial social costs,' United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 907, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large"); Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 522, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972) (reflecting on the serious consequences of dismissal for a speedy trial violation, which means "a defendant who may be guilty of a serious crime will go free"); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 517, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) (Harlan, J., dissenting); id., at 542, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (White, J., dissenting) (objecting that the Court's rule "n some unknown number of cases ... will return a killer, a rapist or other criminal to the streets ... to repeat his crime"); Mapp, 367 U.S., at 659, 81 S.Ct. 1684.
I was under the impression that our side did attempt to do exactly what you state here, and the court nevertheless didn't buy it.Instead of directly confronting the public safety evidence by demonstrating why the evidence that the other side uses is faulty and the inferences draw are unreasonable, they present alternative evidence.
Of course. But that's the very nature of evidence-based arguments in court. Each side picks the evidence it needs to support its position. Courts don't do science, they do law, and litigation is a confrontational mechanism, not a truth-finding one. That's an inherent problem of the courts and law in general, one I personally find distasteful, but it explains exactly why these things become political even in the arena of law.This dueling evidence makes its evaluation appear political to judges, which then defer to the legislature over political issues.
That doesn't follow at all. It may be, for instance, that the courts will be unfair in your favor. Or it may be that you'll get lucky and the courts will actually be fair this time around. It depends on the people involved, something I've argued from the start. Why do you think I've argued that the outcome of these decisions will correlate strongly with the political position of those who appointed the people that made them? It's precisely because the arguments that appeal the most to the listener depend on the listener's preferences, and as regards judges, those preferences were selected for when the judges were selected and nominated. And how could you reasonably argue otherwise, when to argue otherwise is to argue that the nominating politicians were idiots who didn't have their own interests in mind when performing the nomination?If you do not believe the courts will be fair then there is no point in using the courts to resolve the issue.
The problem is that the Constitution does not define the right itself. It simply indicates that the right shall not be infringed.
District of Columbia v. Heller said:Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.
None of the courts to date, where we have lost, found that the law infringes the right based on pubic safety. They have all found that there is no infringement and so the 2A requirement to not infringe has been met.
Peruta v. County of San Diego said:Our first task, therefore, is to assess the nature of the infringement that the San Diego County policy purportedly effects on the right to bear arms—namely, does it burden the right or, like in Heller, does it destroy the right altogether?
Kachalsky v. County of Westchester said:We have held that "heightened scrutiny is triggered only by those restrictions that (like the complete prohibition on handguns struck down in Heller) operate as a substantial burden on the ability of law-abiding citizens to possess and use a firearm for self-defense (or for other lawful purposes)."
To say public safety cannot be a factor in determining the extent of the right, because the Constitution does not explicitly state it, indicates you are misunderstanding what is said in the 2A. There is historical evidence that indicates that there are limits inherent within the right that are of a public safety nature.
The hard part is figuring out what is part of the right and what is not. When Heller and McDonald were decided, five justices felt its limits indicated one thing, while four of the justices felt differently. Neither case really addressed the exact nature of the limits that are of a public safety nature. The lower courts have stepped in, using its scrutiny methodologies the court uses in other areas, to figure out the extents of those rights. SCOTUS has not yet corrected the lower courts on this issue.
There certainly are judges that have a political ideology, but they don't always follow the nominating politician. Justice Souter is a good example. I think one of the characteristics of a good lawyer is the ability to frame the issues in a way that will appeal to opposite leaning judges.
My first question would be: Are they including justifiable homicides(self defense) in those numbers?
From living in a state where it's very difficult to get a permit (Maryland) and one where it was very easy (Alabama) I can tell you which one has more extremely violent street crime in the major cities.
No, they found that the law infringes on the right and then proceeded to decide that said infringement was Constitutional. How do we know this? Simple: because they used "scrutiny", and the courts decide upon scrutiny only after answering whether or not the law in question imposes upon the right at all. Only if the law imposes upon the right in the first place does the court proceed to scrutiny tests. Why? Because if the law in question doesn't impose upon the right in the first place, then there is no need to proceed any further. See, e.g., Peruta v. County of San Diego, 742 F. 3d 1144: